Nature never loses its taste for dry irony. As the civilised world concluded International Holocaust Day activities for another year, we learned of the passing of one the Shoa’s best-known, best-loved survivors.

London-based architect and artist, Roman Halter, who had survived Auschwitz, was aged 85. Polish-born, he had moved to the U.K. after the war. Halter not only lost his entire family but also discovered he was one of only four survivors from the once 800-strong Jewish community of Chodecz.

It is said that as fewer and fewer first-hand witnesses of the Nazi atrocities survive, it will become harder and harder to compel ‘Holocaust deniers’ to tell the truth. Halter’s fine paintings at the Imperial War Museum may bear testimony to the truth but can people be forced to believe it?

On Holocaust Day itself, the Daily Telegraph published a piece by the Jewish Chronicle’s… Read more